


I'm Frankie----Not F**KINGFreddie

by Birdy_f



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22420648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birdy_f/pseuds/Birdy_f





	I'm Frankie----Not F**KINGFreddie

Hi guys, my name’s Frankie and this is my story.

I guess it all started back on my sixth birthday, my parents were driving us back home after my bowling party. My dad was sweaty and shouting, my mum was behind the wheel with her fingers gripping the black leather with white knuckles. She had started it, complaining about the dinner party they were missing out on--or was she shouting about how she was missing her book club to be spending time with her son.

Except that was the thing, I never felt like a Freddie. Maybe it was the dress up and tea party’s my little cousin made me do, or maybe it was the pamper sessions me and my aunt Kelly had together when she babysat me. I just never felt like a boy. My mum just called it a phase--I called it me.

But she was shouting, God knows why she was being so loud. But he was shouting back and it was loud--too loud. The radio was blasting, their breath was ragged, their eyes were off the road and the truck in front stopped. 

That was what hurt them, not killed--they never really died. But my dad became crippled from the waist down, football sunday never continued. My mum--my poor mum--became a shadow of herself; little to none of her left, her brain just as dead as the old light in her eyes.

It was half way through my primary school, year three or maybe it was year four, that the bullying started. 

I was a stick, my arms looked like branches, my cheeks sunken and my bones stuck out. I saw the looks the other school mums gave me. Pitying my skinny self, probably thinking I was being neglected or something.

I wasn't, I just didn't seem to put any weight on. Besides, my nan’s shepards pie was the best food ever--could never pass up on seconds. 

But that’s where my nickname came from French Fry Freddie came from.

Friday at school become ruthless as the teachers turned a blind eye when the chips came flying at me, a chorus of boys shouting at me--screaming for me to gain some weight and get pretty.

Year five, around my ninth birthday, was when my dad called me Frankie. I don't remember why, but I came into school for Comic Relief with one of my cousins dresses on, I had a wig and everything. My mum didn't smile, but some song was playing on the radio and Dad just looked at me and sang out Frankie. 

That was the day I felt this spark in my grow, it warmed my body; I finally felt complete.

It was also the day I came home with tranny marked on my forehead, a bloodied nose and a broken heart to complete the look.

Fast forward to year seven. It was finally time for me to become who I wanted to be--boy was that a mistake. 

I put on some concealer, plucked and shaped my brows for picture day and even put on some faint lip gloss. Someone said I looked good, than someone butted in and called me a tranny. 

I never knew what a tranny was until I went home and googled it.

Hah--that shit hurt. 

Hah--that shit is the reason why I started cutting.

Small lines, across my chest, one on my hip and a long one across my stomach. Hidden from my nan, unnoticeable to everyone; not that anyone noticed me.

Year seven was also the first year I kissed a girl, I didn't feel right. There was no spark. No sparkle, no magic. Just a peck on my lips and a shy smile on hers.

We still talk--a friendly “fuck off you pig” in my direction when we pass each other in the hallways. She sure does make me smile.

Year seven was the year everything happened to me. I lost my dad, it was a small funeral we held-- we buried him next to his brother and we all had to wear outrageous colours instead of black at his dying request.

I got diagnosed with ADHD, my--uh, my mum had to go to hospital because she had breast cancer. My heart and mind became to different things, my body soon became a canvas with red slits on pale pink paint. 

I tried to get out of my head, the questions of what if and what will surrounded my head, but than maths and science flooded my brain and they helped block it out, but it didn't stop my fingers from seeking out the sliver friend of mine. 

Year eight went pretty swimmingly, I came out and decided that I wanted to be called Frankie and not Freddie, my family took it okay I guess. It took some adjustment and a lot of apology cookies, but my family soon accepted Frankie Thompson.

I made some friends and blocked out the bullies.

I got a boyfriend, He was bi and I was his type--obviously we didn't last, nothing is ever that good.

I even managed to get moved up to top set english and maths, year eight felt like my year.

The summer hit and I felt like a rock was sitting in the pit of my stomach. I felt like my eyes couldn't see straight and that my lungs were compressing slowly.

I lost a lot of friends in those six weeks, found out that I wasn't as liked as I thought. My boyfriend cheated on me--that was fun! My nan passed and soon enough, it was just me and my grandad in our big old house with my mum in a care home.

I think that was something that broke my heart, losing my family to have it just be me and my grandad close together. Each being a shoulder to lean on, a best friend in troubled times. He became closer to me than what me and my dad ever where, he became my mum, dad, nan and grandad rolled into one--and boy it was hard for him.

He tried to hide it, those tears he shed over a bottle of brandy were never that secret; but i left him to deal with it, I dealt with it with the help of my trust silver sidekick.

But then something kicked me down--Imagine that you crawled on your knees your whole life, but everybody around you walked on two legs. You recognize that you are different, and you know you should be walking like everyone else, but you just can’t keep your balance on two legs the way you can when you crawl. 

That's right folks at home listening to this thinking “oh this shit gonna be sad” my ADHD kicked me down hill. I mean, it always has--what else is it meant to do apart from kick you in the gut and fuck you up.

But it was like--no, it felt like--FUCK! ADHD does not “feel like” anything. Unlike a physical problem, I dealt with that since I was old enough to get my pen licence at primary school, ADHD is invisible. People offer sympathy when you are in pain. Trying to explain ADHD without seeming to make excuses is tough. Perhaps if someone were to create a “sling” or “splint” for ADHD, the public might have more sympathy for having the condition.

But it felt like my life was on pause, like the lights were on but nobody was home--you know the feeling you get when you’re driving through thick fog, on a dark road, trying to get to where you know you are supposed to be. The problem is, you lost the directions and have no GPS to guide you--and, in the background, the radio is playing loud songs that are changing.

I felt lost and I didn't know who to turn to.

I had my summer mental breakdown, the puberty blockers worked an honest to god treat. I was finally starting to feel like Frankie and not Freddie. 

I grew my hair out and before school kicked off, I was pimple free with a messy bob of curls. 

I felt great.

Year nine came, the library became my hideout and the best thing I found out was that I could make pot noodles in the prefect common room--only because I was liked by the head prefect. 

Year nine was off to a great start, I made friends, I dumped toxic people in the recycling bin and left the haters in my dust.

I even stopped cutting and painted small flowers growing out of the scars during art class.

I wasn't embarrassed.

I wasn't ashamed of myself.

I was happy, everything was finally looking up.

And then my grandad passed.

I was the only blood relative of his left, my aunts all on my mum’s side, no family apart from my dead dad and nan on my grandfather's side. So I attended his funeral alone, no tears to shed, no weeps left to escape from my lungs, not even a scream to echo.

There was nothing to feel. I just couldn't breath.

Life became still, a freeze frame of me coming home after school. A stupid smile on my happy face only to find my grandad on the floor by the living room door, his hand out stretched for the phone, his eyes open and cloudy--his lips pulled into a grim smile.

I. Did. Nothing.

I didn't move, no sound, my mind went black and a loud buzz filled my eardrums.

He was asleep, right? No I wasn't stupid! But convincing myself otherwise as I curled myself around his cold body that he was just dreaming made the tears not fall.

That was the night I tried to take my life.

Key word being tried.

My grandad’s neighbour looked through our window to see if we could move our car to see blood on white carpets, my smile a grim expression that would scare Lady Death herself.

I got sent to this recovery hospital with others like me--depressed, anorexic and suicidal teens in the Sword and Shield Hospital.

I tried to take my life again my first night there with a blunt butter knife. 

If you’re guessing it didn't work, then you wouldn't be surprised to know I lived after trying to stab my heart for an hour or so.

I was too weak to actually put in the effort to stab myself to death.

The day after that some doctor brought me a paper heart to stab; nothing was left of it.

Whoops…

Fast forward a few years, three to be exact, and after trying to take my life multiple times, the doctors deemed me fit to leave and I moved in with my aunt Kelly in America at the ripe age of seventeen and a half.

I had changed, my hair was longer and less curly--more wavy with dark highlights in my honey gold locks. My eyes were as dark as the midnight sky and my body had been littered from thigh to knee and wrist to shoulder in rows of scars, burns and scratches.

I wasn't ashamed of them, they were part of me.

Aunt Kelly cried when she first saw me after four years of no contact.

We hugged and i swear i felt something wet run down my cheek.

That may have been the best highlight of my year.

That tear was the first happy one I had shed in a long time.

Now here I am, recording this at home for all you to listen and watch on your phone, laptop, ipad--you get the picture.

This, my dear followers, is my recovery story for recovery week at the hospital.

This is my story of how I went from a scrawny little boy to a doctor who helps kids who were like me.

This is my story and I’m not embarrassed by it.


End file.
